This invention relates to a code image recording apparatus adapted to record speech entered through a microphone by printing it on a predetermined printing medium in the form of an optically readable code image and reproducing the entered speech by means of a loudspeaker.
The assignee of the present patent application has proposed a recording apparatus for recording speech by printing it on a predetermined printing medium in the form of an optically readable code image of dot codes in EP 0,670,555 A1 (U.S. Ser. No. 08/407,018).
FIGS. 1A and 1B of the accompanying drawings schematically illustrate the configuration of the physical format of dot codes to be used for the proposed recording apparatus. The code pattern 1 comprises a plurality of blocks 2 arranged two-dimensionally on a side by side basis. Each block 2 in turn comprises a data area 3, markers 4 and a block address pattern 5.
The data area 3 contains white dots and black dots representing respective data values of "0s" and "1s" that are assigned to each block as speech data and arranged according to a predetermined format of arrangement to produce a white dot image or a black dot image. The markers 4 are black markers arranged at the four corners of the block 12 to provide a reference point for detecting each dot in the data area 3, each of the markers 4 being formed by a certain number of consecutively arranged black dots. The block address pattern 5 is arranged between adjacently located markers 4 to make the block 2 discriminable from other blocks 2 and contains white dots and black dots representing respective data values of "0s" and "1s" that are assigned to each block as address data including an error detecting or error correcting code. The vertical and horizontal lines connecting the dots in the drawing are used for the ease of understanding and they do not exist in real code images.
A system using dot codes arranged with the above described physical format provides an advantage that the original data can be restored by rearranging the data of the blocks according to their respective addresses if all the dot codes of the data covers an area greater than the area that can be taken by the solid state image sensing device of the image reader or, differently stated, if the entire dot codes of the data cannot be picked up by a single shot, provided that the address of each of the blocks is contained in any of the images taken by the image reader. Therefore, such a dot code system can store a huge volume of data on a single sheet of paper in a manner that can be achieved by no other known one-dimensional or two-dimensional bar code system so that speech data can be transmitted or transported in a simple manner by means of a recording medium such as paper. Thus, the dot code system may have a wide variety of applications that are not conceivable with known code systems.
The code image recording apparatus may be an ordinary printer or a label printer adapted to print and record optically readable dot codes continuously on label-like sheets of paper being fed also continuously along a given direction.
The use of a label printer for a code image recording apparatus is very promising because it is portable and easy to use and hence provides a broad opportunity of utilization.
However, label printers or not, known code image recording apparatuses have problems to be overcome before they get a high market value.
More specifically, a code image recording apparatus of the type under consideration takes a relatively long time for it to transform a speech input through a speech input means such as microphone into a code image of encoded data in the form of dot codes arranged according to a predetermined format and therefore the user can often be held in a stand-by state where he or she will have to wait for the completion of the current process of transforming the speech into a code image. Thus, the user can have the apparatus print the code image only after the completion of the process, and this creates a considerable inconvenience.
On the other hand, the user of a code image recording apparatus of the type under consideration may more often than not want to reproduce the speech he or she has input through the microphone by way of the loudspeaker in order to quickly and audibly ensure the input. Thus, how to meet the requirement of audibly ensuring the speech input is a problem to be solved along with the above identified problem of a long stand-by time.